10 hours ago
Why the hype around Gout Gout, the teenage Australian sprinting sensation, is getting real by the minute
In his first senior race away from Australia, on his professional debut in the fabled European athletics circuit, Gout Gout ran a stunning 20.02s in the 200m race at Ostrava Golden Spike on Tuesday, to break his own Personal Best and Australian Record over that distance.
The Queensland-born teenager of South Sudanese heritage — still only 17 — justified why the hype around him is getting harder to ignore with every passing event. His stunning finishing kick saw him overtake Cuba's Reynier Mena on the final stretch. The sprinter from Down Under is earning comparisons with Usain Bolt, which can be hit and miss as we have seen in the past with a few other young sprinters, but beyond the timings he is posting so early in his career, even the running style is being likened to the Jamaican legend.
First, some background. Gout was born in Ipswich, near Brisbane, in Queensland state. His parents are South Sudanese immigrants who moved to Australia in 2005. At age 16 last December, Gout ran 20.04 seconds to win the 200 at the national high school championships and break a 56-year-old national record over that distance, set by 1968 Olympic silver medalist Peter Norman.
In August last year, Gout caught the world's attention. At the Under-20 World Championships in Lima, he won a silver medal with a personal best of 20.60 seconds. Gout joined the big league of Next-Gen stars when Adidas signed him up after Lima. His timing at the Peruvian capital immediately raised his profile.
Gout has already gone faster over 200m than Bolt did as an U18 athlete. Bolt's best U18 time is 20.13s, bettered only by USA's Erriyon Knighton (19.84), apart from Gout. The Aussie clocked 19.84 earlier this year but that had an illegal wind reading of +2.2 seconds.
What's in a name?
The commentator during Ostrava Golden Spike casually remarked at the start of the 200m race while introducing the athletes that Gout Gout is already popular, 'partly for the name and partly because he's just brilliant.' As strange as it sounds, the youngster's name has indeed been in the news.
'His name is Guot, it's supposed to be Guot,' his father Bona told 7NEWS last December. According to the report, Guot – to be pronounced as Gwot – became Gout 'due to an Arabic spelling mix-up by the Sudanese government'.
'When I see people called him Gout Gout, I'm not really happy for him,' Bona added. 'I know that Gout is a disease name, but I don't want my son to be called a disease name … it's something that's not acceptable.'
Ripper of a finishing kick
Gout's race in Ostrava once again made it clear that his biggest strength, especially over 200m where he seems destined for greatness even more so than 100m, is the speed after crossing the final bend. His reaction time off the block was pretty impressive, but he doesn't appear to be going all out in the first 100m of the race. It is the final stretch where the top-end speed mechanics kick in for him, and he's aware of it too.
Gout is quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald: 'I knew Mena would come hard at me the first 100, but I was confident I'd be close enough to come home strongly in the second part of the race, which is of course my stronger part.'
Already made headlines
Gout has posted sub-20 timings over 200m, clocking 19.84s at the national championship at Perth in April but it couldn't be ratified as an official record because of the (barely) illegal wind measurement of +2.2m/s. He also ran a sub-10 (9.99s) over 100m that week in the U20 nationals with a higher wind-reading of +3.5m/s. Both those milestones feel like a matter of time anyway.
The stylistic comparisons to Bolt haven't gone unnoticed. 'I do see it (comparison with Bolt). My stride length is pretty long, my knee height is pretty high and just the amount of tallness I get when I'm running. I'm just me trying to be me. Obviously, I do run like him (Bolt). I do sometimes look like him, but obviously I'm making a name for myself, and I think I've done that pretty well. I just want to continue doing that and continue to be not only Usain Bolt but continue to be Gout Gout,' he had told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Europe sojourn
Gout has had to time his European trip to coincide with mid-year school holidays for Class 12. Gout will race again in Europe next month before returning to Australia for some school work and preparation for the world championships in Tokyo in September.
'I don't feel any pressure. Because as soon as I step out on that track, it's just me by myself and what I've got to do — my favourite thing, and that's to run. So, I just go out there and run and nothing stops me from doing that … Get some more races in me and (the 20-second barrier) will drop for sure.'
(With agency inputs)
Vinayakk Mohanarangan is Senior Assistant Editor and is based in New Delhi. ... Read More
